


The Lucas Intrigue

by jujubiest



Series: The Lucas Compendium [5]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 10:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4177200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo and Hanson try to figure out more about Lucas's mystery lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lucas Intrigue

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I'd do something fun and silly before shit gets real.

Lucas is in love; it's written all over his face. He smiles at nothing, for no reason, all the time. He's unusually quiet and has this faraway look in his eyes. He keeps getting text messages that make him grin from ear to ear and turn the color of a raw beet. And he absolutely refuses to talk about it. The man who can keep no secret becomes a master of evasion the moment anyone asks him about his mysterious lover. The secretive little smirk on his face is just unbearable.

And Detective Jo Martinez will be damned before she's outfoxed by the likes of Lucas Wahl. She will get to the bottom of this if it's the last thing she does. And she knows just the person to ask about anything Lucas is hiding; the one person he absolutely  _cannot_ keep secrets from, even if he wants to.

"Henry," she says, sidling up to him. He's got on his coat and scarf, clearly on his way out of the office and looking ridiculously dapper as always. She gives him a big smile which he returns somewhat warily.

"Jo?" He draws her name into a question. She smiles wider, knowing she's caught already. There'll be no casually finessing the truth out of him now. Oh well.

"Have you noticed anything strange about Lucas lately?" Henry stops walking and looks at her seriously.

"Lucas? Strange? You mean more than usual?" He's trying to sound so nonchalant, but Jo isn't buying it. She zeroes in on the caught-out look in his eyes.  _Hmmmm._

"Yes, strange. Texting all the time, blushing, grinning like a lovesick schoolgirl...missing nights out with the team due to mysterious plans that he never elaborates on?"

Henry goes slightly paler and turns to continue on his way, walking briskly enough that even Jo's long legs are forced to jog a bit to keep up with him.

"I haven't the slightest idea what you mean," he says, refusing to look at her anymore. But she isn't giving up that easily.

"Oh come on, Henry," she insists. "You can't really tell me that  _you_ of all people haven't noticed anything different. Lucas is dating someone...why on earth would he hide them away like this?"

Henry stops again, so shortly that Jo nearly runs into him. He turns to her with a deadly solemn look that seems strange given the topic of conversation.

"I can assure you, Detective, that should you wish to speculate on the nature of Lucas's love life, I am the last person in a position to enlighten you with my theories. And might I suggest that if Lucas wishes not to divulge his personal matters in the workplace, you respect his wishes and leave well enough alone."

And with that singularly huffy statement, he turns on his heel and stomps off, leaving Jo dumbfounded and alone on the sidewalk outside the precinct.

She thought seriously about his parting words for about half a second.

_Yeah right. I am gonna crack this thing wide open._

* * *

 

She decides to bring Hanson in. She's sure he has to have noticed something strange about Lucas's behavior, and she's right.

"Oh yeah," he says when she tells him all about it over coffee and donuts--some stereotypes are just too delicious to fight. "I have noticed. Every time he gets a text he gets this grin on his face, like the cat that ate the canary. You know the real question though."

"No," she says around a mouthful of double-glazed. "What's the real question?"

"How come Dr. Fancypants got so squirrely when you brought it up? Almost like he had somethin' to hide."

Jo nearly chokes on her donut.

"You're not suggesting--"

"Damn right I am, too," he interrupts. "Why else would he be so quick to shut you down like that?"

"I don't...I'm pretty sure Henry was married once, Mike! To a  _woman._ "

Mike shrugs. "People change. And lie. And y'know...some people do like both."

"Huh." Jo mulls that over for a second. Honestly, it wouldn't be that surprising. Lucas certainly makes no secret of his admiration for Henry; it borders on hero worship. Jo tries to imagine Lucas and Henry on a date and comes up blank. What would they even talk about?

She voices this to Hanson, who shrugs again.

"Maybe they don't do much talkin'." Jo's eyebrows go up. "What? Two lonely dudes in the big city...it doesn't gotta be true love."

"I dunno...doesn't Henry strike you as the type to be kind of..."

"Disgustingly chivalrous and hopelessly romantic? Yeah, but a guy can still get lonely. And hey, maybe it really is serious."

Jo is quiet for a few minutes while she sips her coffee. Something about Henry's demeanor doesn't sit right with her. There's something she's missing.

"I think we need more information," she says. Mike grins wolfishly over the top of the last donut. Bastard.

"Stakeout?"

"Yeah," Jo says. "But you're buying the donuts."

* * *

They're two boxes of chocolate and jam-filled fried-dough goodness poorer and three cups of coffee each more wired, and still Henry and Lucas haven't emerged from the theater.

"What are they, seeing a double feature?" Hansons grouses from the passenger seat. "I need to piss. And we ain't exactly getting paid overtime for this."

"The stakeout was your idea, Mike," Jo says lightly, opening up the fourth box. "Grab a bottle and quit whining." He groans and glares at her, which she ignores in favor of keeping an eagle eye on the door of the theater.

"Maybe they saw a double feature," she suggests, just as the doors open and people start pouring out. Both detectives sit up, at full attention. Finally, toward the end of the queue, out walk Henry and Lucas, shoulder to shoulder.

"Here we go," Jo says, shifting the quietly idling car into drive, preparing to follow them. But they say their goodbyes at the door, and Lucas walks one way while Henry heads off in another.

"Guess the movie didn't quite set the mood," Hanson quips. She glowers at him.

"Hush. Oh jeez, they must be doing something to keep the romance alive. Look...they just said goodnight and already Lucas is making googly-eyes at one of Henry's romantic texts."

"Uh...you sure about that?" Hanson indicates the other direction, where Henry can still be seen walking away. His hands are in his pockets.

"Maybe he sent it earlier?" Jo suggests weakly.

"During a movie? Lucas would murder him."

"Okay...so he just went on a date with Henry...it had to be a date, in no world would Henry go see anything on that marquee for something less than true love. So...who's sending Lucas those texts?"

"Lucas, you dog," Hanson chuckles. "He's got his cake and he's eating it too!"

Jo frowns, concerned. "You don't really think Lucas would cheat on Henry? He practically worships the man!"

"Yeah," Hanson agrees. "But that's at work. Maybe Dr. Morgan's personal doesn't quite, ah, measure up to his professional."

"You are the worst," Jo says. Hanson makes no argument.

"Okay," she sighs. "Time to move this stakeout to Lucas's apartment."

* * *

They park across the street from Lucas's apartment in the shadow of a blown-out street lamp, far enough away to avoid being seen but close enough to observe the front entrance. Lucas lives in an older building in Queens, crumbling, characterless concrete. It's not the type of place to have a doorman, which means Lucas will have to buzz anyone who comes calling up. He may even have to let them in himself. Either way, Jo can just make out the buzzer panel with her binoculars. The name Wahl is written in bold block letters under apartment 601. She'll be able to tell if someone comes to the front door and hits that button.

Unlike the movie theater, they don't have to wait very long. Less than half an hour after Lucas goes up to his apartment, a man comes walking down the sidewalk and up the short set of steps to the front door of Lucas's building. She doesn't get a good look of his face from the street, with the dim lighting, and by the time he steps under the light by the door his back is to her...but Jo thinks that something about him is oddly familiar. She trains the binoculars at the buzzer panel and watches as he firmly presses the button for 601 twice.

"That's our guy," she whispers to Hanson.

"Huh...not bad," he says, peering through the binoculars as she hands them over.

"How can you tell?" She asks. "All you can see is the back."

"Yeah, but the back ain't bad," he says. "Kinda looks familiar, though."

She wants to tease him about recognizing the guy's ass, but she doesn't because she thought the same thing. And the more she thinks about it, the more unsettled she feels. As though whatever she's not quite remembering is seriously bad news.

"I still can't believe Lucas would cheat on Henry," she murmurs as the door opens and the guy heads up.

"You think you know a guy," Hanson replies in agreement. "Should we tell him?"

She turns wide eyes on Hanson. "Oh god. I didn't even think about that. Should we?"

"I dunno...you know the doc better than I do. Would he want to know?"

"Would anyone  _not_ want to know something like this? I sure as hell would."

"I wouldn't," Hanson says emphatically. "If my wife were steppin' out on me? I'd rather remain blissfully in the dark, thanks. Long as she comes back to me at the end of every day, what do I care who else she's messin' around with? I'm the one she married."

"But the betrayal...the lying about it? That wouldn't bother you?"

"Who says Lucas is lying? For all we know this is an arrangement they all have: Lucas goes on nice dates with the doc and has kinky sex with the tall guy."

"Why is it kinky sex?" Jo asks, eyebrow raised.

"Why shouldn't it be? Look, all I'm sayin' is that we don't know the whole story here. All we know is that Lucas and the doc go out to the movies together, apparently never so much as hold hands in public, and keep the whole thing secret from everybody. And then Lucas texts this guy, he comes over, they do whatever they do. And Lucas clams up if anybody asks. Maybe they'd be happier not knowing we know."

Jo wrinkles her nose. That's a long way from satisfying her curiosity, but Henry's face when he politely told her to mind her own business comes back to her. She feels the first twinge of guilt.

"Fine," she says, not happy but resigned. She's still got a nagging feeling about the guy in Lucas's apartment, but with nothing solid to go on anymore digging will just seem like more nosiness to Hanson.

"Great," Hanson says. "Now hows about we go grab some real food? All those donuts are giving me indigestion."

 

 


End file.
